How Remote Work Changed What Tenants Want — And How Landlords Can Benefit

Five years ago, proximity to downtown transit was one of the most reliable drivers of rental premiums. A home with a short commute to a major employment center commanded a higher price than a comparable home further out. That relationship has fundamentally changed.

Remote and hybrid work hasn't just affected where people live — it's changed what they need from a home. And for landlords, particularly those renting single-family homes in suburban and secondary markets, that shift has created real financial opportunity.

The scale of the change

Approximately 34.6 million Americans now work remotely in some capacity, representing about 21% of the total workforce. About 27% of all paid workdays are now done from home — roughly 5 times the pre-pandemic rate, according to WFH Research.

The key insight: this is structural, not temporary. 76% of workers say they would quit their job if required to return to the office full time (Gallup 2025). Among fully remote-capable employees, 52% currently work hybrid and 26% are fully remote. Major employers who attempted rigid return-to-office mandates in 2023–2024 saw significant turnover and largely retreated.

The workforce has reorganized around the assumption of location flexibility, and the rental market has followed.

What remote tenants actually want

Surveys of remote workers consistently rank the same property features at the top of their wish list:

Dedicated home office space. This is the #1 desired feature. Not a desk in the bedroom — a separate room or sufficiently private space for video calls, focused work, and professional setup. A 3-bedroom home where the third bedroom can serve as an office is more attractive to a remote worker than a 4-bedroom home with an open floor plan where every space bleeds into the next.

High-speed internet. Minimum expectation is 100 Mbps. Preferred is gigabit fiber. This is infrastructure, not a perk — for someone working from home, internet failure is work stoppage. Landlords who can honestly advertise "gigabit fiber available" have a measurable competitive advantage.

More square footage. Remote workers need room to work, exercise, and decompress without leaving the house. Single-family homes with 1,800+ square feet outperform smaller units in remote worker preference studies. Separate living and working space matters.

Outdoor access. Private yard, patio, or deck has moved from nice-to-have to near-requirement for the remote worker demographic. 49% of remote workers planning to move cite outdoor space as a key priority.

Quiet neighborhoods. Background noise on video calls is a professional liability. Suburban and rural settings have gained significant appeal for this reason alone.

Where remote workers are moving

49% of remote workers planning to move are heading to suburban areas. Single-family homes are the top housing choice for remote movers at 50% of the total. For 41% of remote movers, transit accessibility is no longer a priority — a complete reversal from pre-pandemic.

Cost of living is the top motivator for moves among remote workers (37%), followed by better housing (29%) and lifestyle factors (24%). This is driving net migration from expensive coastal cities toward affordable mid-sized metros, Sun Belt suburbs, and smaller cities with high quality of life.

Net migration data confirms it: NYC lost over 50,000 residents via domestic migration in 2024. Meanwhile, suburban counties outside of Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix, and Nashville are among the fastest-growing in the country.

Austin is seeing 38% of new long-term leases attributed to remote workers relocating from higher-cost markets. Markets like Boise, Chattanooga, Greenville, and Raleigh-Durham have all seen meaningful in-migration from remote-work-enabled movers.

How landlords can capture the remote worker premium

1. Mention the home office space explicitly in your listing. Don't just say "3 bedrooms" — say "3 bedrooms including a dedicated home office with natural light and door closure." The framing matters to the search algorithms and to the searcher.

2. Upgrade your internet if you can. If fiber is available at the property, add it and mention the specific speed. If you're providing internet as part of rent, this becomes a significant competitive differentiator.

3. Photograph the office-ready space. Remote workers often rent from listings they've only seen online. A photo of a clean, well-lit room with a window and an outlet strip does more for their imagination than generic living room shots.

4. Emphasize outdoor space. Even a modest backyard or private patio is worth highlighting. Photos of the outdoor space should be in the listing.

5. Note quiet, suburban character. If your property is in a quiet residential area away from major roads, say so. "Quiet residential street in [neighborhood], ideal for work-from-home" is relevant information for this tenant demographic.

6. Allow pets. Remote workers are disproportionately likely to own pets — they're home all day. A pet-friendly policy is strongly correlated with appealing to the remote work demographic.

The geographic opportunity for suburban landlords

The practical implication for landlords in suburban and secondary markets is significant: your location, which might have been considered a limitation in the pre-pandemic era, is now a feature for a large and growing portion of the renter population.

A 3-bedroom single-family home in a quiet suburb with a backyard, good internet, and a potential home office room is no longer "good for a family" as a category — it's now also desirable for a couple of remote workers who want space, quiet, and lower cost of living. That's a much larger target market than it was five years ago.

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